fame, and that man would gain by in adopting, but does not; but I will not look after them; it is late in the day, and I want to get to the end of my journey. As to feveral other inftances which I may have lately given in common occurrences, where I may not have been able, and cannot expose causes for finding them to be not what they appear; yet I own I suspect them all to be only a fuperior fort of instinct, above that of the creatures, who alfo in their turn fhew marks of reason, though it is really ftill instinct. Men have continual inftinctive catches of cunning and fufpicion one against the other, and often when neither are confcious of it; nor does a literary correspondence hardly pass without them, and perhaps almost always without varying with circumstances, &c.; fome, to be fure, necessary, but the less the better, and I believe they are in proportion as natures are fuperior or inferior. The nearer you are to darkness, of course the greater will be your suspicion and apprehenfion of objects around you. Could one but gain that fingle thing of man's bearing you,* what gain to himself!-but no, at best you only pull a fpring back, which returns after to its place again; how often, after your DEMONSTRATION given, do you find the fame to be given again to the fame man? and I mean this in perhaps writers of even ingenuity. Let me end all this, (become verbiage) with this one remark, comprehenfible and conclufive to all the world, (I mean ftill those who can fee and reflect even fo far) in fhewing-that man has not a principle of reafon in him. I meant the universal adoption of a religion, of fuch incoherence, contradiction, and abfurdity, as nothing among mad people can at all exceed, and this in all ages, and all civilized countries; nay, and what pins you abfolutely if you * When I say bearing, I mean both liftening and answering, and both truly, exactly as faid in the Maxim it is taken from, fome pages higher. + While I advance this, I however defire to fling this in, in parenthesis, that if Mr. Pope will change his elementary fentence of "whatever is, is right," to "whatever is defigned, will be;" I know not at all but we may shake hands together by and by, though not stopping my present train and pursuit. C deny X deny it, not lefs in the moft exalted geniuses of the respective countries, than the moft groveling and inferior. As to us, we are not included, because we have the true one; but we fee and know the fact all over the rest of the world; befide, I would afk, how (in reafon) can a large body of men unite in any one question whatever? So much then for my bistory of man, recommended to me and my study and examination. And now to clofe the whole, I shall beg leave, by way of a fort of appendix, to relate a particular cafe or fact, that I think will ferve even a great many purposes, and cannot therefore, I am willing to flatter myfelf, be unacceptable, nay, amufing and entertaining; ferve to close up, corroborate, and confirm, from example, all that has been advanced of my general history, and in a very particular manner, I hope, (for my pride or vanity is, I deny it not, concerned therein) corroborate the not lefs bold than free rifings on Mr. Pope in his Effay on Criticism, with my venturesome attempts in the fame road. I confefs, par parenthefe, that I was afraid, for myself, after they had paffed my printer's prefs, and felt not at ease, though I now do completely, the whole length of my long note and accompanying verfe having been returned me by a chofen, and to me to be fure, adequate and competent tribunal, (pray be it marked, that I mean it to be open the fame to every other, not one of which I am not ready to liften to even with joy) with the joy-given lead pencil fcratch from beginning to end.* This may be called, and perhaps is, great vanity; be it fo, I do not care, I have been modeft long enough; fome marks of which may perhaps now, ere long, appear in the ensuing anecdotic account, as it may give alfo occa I am, however, here glad of the opportunity of somewhat recanting my very firang denial of taste, grace, true difcern.ment, and confequently qualifications, for critics of certain works, in your deep Scholars; and to fay, that one excellent scholar came across my mind after, and shewed me I should make exceptions, which I here then do. The perfon I allude to, I know not much, though I have converfed and even dined with him, yet enough to think and fay this; he is at the very head of the church. I hardly expected my black-lead pencil as above, for he too is a true scholar. fion fion to certain critical sets or fects to really look a little about them, and without injury to themselves, payer un peu de modeftie; but if I do not honestly give the verum ridentem, may I be branded for whatever you please!—Oh! but do not I now fee before my mental eyes, the "aye, aye, I know better," and if I fee with it, in the fame mind's eye, the great fentence I have fo often envied in the great La Rouchefoucault, of « Le plus grand defaut de la penetration " n'eft pas de ne pas aller jufqu'an but, c'eft de le paffer."* Do I not poffibly see that, as only (at best) if adopted, a temporary draw-back of a spring to return again to its place? as I indeed faid fomething of before. Oh! the non-feeing, in all human little differences, wrong from one's felf even of demonstration (how much lefs others not of demonftration hardly need be named) is to me wonderful. Henry IV's enchanting behaviour with Sully is little indeed followed; I muft fuppofe then (for of other breafts what can I do but guess?) not felt: my own little moft favourite maxim may I be allowed feelingly to transcribe, viz., "True delicacy, as true generofity, is "perhaps more wounded by an offence from itself (if I may be allowed fo "extraordinary an expreffion) than to itself." And fince I am in the humour for it, thank you, dear Shakespeare, for your dear motto to this book. Well, Perge, fequar. I can hardly conceive a better example of the instinctive cunning of man, than this very thing. This fecret and filent mental" I know better," comes across man continually in his intercourfe with his fellow-man. One advances fomething in converfation or writing that is to ferve his own purpose, and generally perhaps not quite exact to truth, but leaning and partial to self; the other, to whom it is addreffed, and poffibly to fome perfonal end, has his defensive instinct against it, and then comes bis mental -'I know better;' which, if rationally employed by proportioning it to the particular instance it is employed in, would be indeed rational; but no, it is not at all; and I well know, that it goes just the fame against the man who would not unfairly or meanly lye for an empire, as to him who is lying all day and every day. When I fay lying, I mean evading, equivocating, prevaricating, changing your words, or what you faid when got wrong; with a long fhabby etcetera, which I once called to a practitioner of it all, not drinking fairly in the dark: and which, when I am myself found guilty of, let me have a double dofe of that contempt you beftow on every theoretic paltry preacher! Shakespeare certainly meant this when he gave us our motto to this work. Yet too, tell me, does it follow, that in not adopting all this, you must put your heart on your fleeve " for jays to peck at?" Alas, alas! 'tremely!' "Well then, Jofeph is in there, (pointing and whispering) fhall we get him out?"-Bang goes the door, as we all know, as we do jovial and jolly Charles's jovial and jolly proceedings in confequence. Bafta: the certain nameless and well-known gentleman turned author: What followed? I will tell you; nay, I will afford you a fomething of a diable boiteux, who fhall even give you a peep into fome part at least of his apartments:-take away then my whether poetic or philofophic robes, and e'en give me my robe de chambre. You will, I dare fay, not rebuff my familiarity, after our now pretty long acquaintance, and my exposure of pretty well all my humours to you. He turned author: and how, where, and when? Oh! I will very frankly tell you, and with all my heart: You have got my little lame devil with you by now, and fo in the first place you fee, that whatever the surprise and hubbub at the feemingly fo new trade of author, I had already been it very many years before. Yes, few years after twenty, and then little indeed attending other authors, or scarce looking into a book; one, however, happening to be a fashionable one, and of a man very intimate in my family, and that I had honoured there quite in my youth, (I hope I am Montaigne enough) Lord Lyttleton, and the book the Converfion of St. Paul; I did look into it, and its reafoning; and notwithstanding its fashion, by no means happening to fee it as others had done, took it into my head to fit down and answer it, which I did, and put it in my drawer, where it has lain ever fince in its uncommunicated state: when I fay uncommunicated state, I fhould except a certain musical youth I had got poffeffion of from musical apprenticeship, to whom that, as all my concerns, were ever communicated; and they were very little connected with either the faint or gospel. No pronefhip at least then to literary honour dwelt within me; nay, and fince I have begun, I may as well add, that about the fame time it came into my head to go through the four Gofpels, in order to judge of them for and from myfelf, after regular church church-going through life, from that of other people, and this too as entirely incommunicative as the other. Whether I might not as well have kept all this ftill on to myfelf, I cannot fay; but there it is, and there let it remain; little perhaps having of the cui bono to accompany it. If, indeed, the prefent work fhould happen to fare as I have known more than one foolish book to do, that I could name, I mean get a fort of reputation, it may ferve, if any ufe in that, to awaken fome curiofity for what cannot then rest long ungratified, I mean pofthumous difcovery. And, whether from amour propre or no I know not, I do not deny the thinking there may be some new lights fcattered over the latter little performance. Ere I finish all this Episode, it must however be proper to add, that I do not say truth as to having fhewn my labours to no one, for I did to my Scotch friend (quoted in a note) at Rome, very many years after and fince being married. 11. But I delay, indeed, (and in truth, when I talk of Montaigne, I might perhaps as well of Triflram Shandy-as to the wandering part, 'tis meant, you fee;) my intended more appofite account;-what was the authorship in queftion, or its occafion or attendant circumstances? Why, in Lorrain, among a fet of charming people in old Stanislaus' little court, where elegance of every fort refided among people, as of the first fashion, fo of the first class and taste for, nay indeed and writers in literature; and the ton being literary reflection, it got hold of me, and from a few fentences that way, written too in French, and communicated to fome of my French friends, merely for amusement; they infenfibly fwelled there, and in England afterwards, to what is feen, and indeed to much more than double the number befide, burnt afterwards; they then became an object, and were exposed to examination first and last, (previous to the decided part taken of printing) to a number of people whofe names muft command respect indeed every where and at all times, if divulged, as they never have been by me then or fince. If I name the firft Lord Lyttleton, Lord Chatham, and Garrick, this will be enough, and not be contradicted; and I could, perhaps, fix or eight more of equal refpectability. Then they went forth: and what followed? a wonderment all through the town and country, and critiques hardly 1 |